We Need to Learn How to Plan Better

What started out as a little Halloween party for the kindergarten is growing into a full-scale Halloween carnival for the entire school and surrounding area. Leia wanted me to make a plan on how this would be done, and I typed up an ambitious list of carnival booths with descriptions and supplies needed. On Thursday, some of us went to Wal-Mart to look at Halloween decorations, exchange a broken dancing Frankenstein, and to get some more supplies. The selection there was disappointing and expensive.

I was planning to go to Open Mic Night in Anyang on Friday, but I was too tired to go out after work. Instead, Injoo and I had dinner at the barbecue restaurant next to the school, where we feasted on smoked bacon, sausage, ribs, and duck.

The next day, we were planning a large get together at Sh-wing. The restaurant was celebrating its second birthday by offering not only all-you-can-eat wings but also half-priced beer.

Lars, Injoo, and I went up there together, where we met Brant and Tara. Lars’s friends Andrew and Lydia showed up too. This was Lars’s, Andrew’s, and Lydia’s first time there, and they were required to eat at least one Krazy Korean wing to be inducted. Andrew’s reaction at first was that they weren’t too hot. Then it sneaked up on him. All three of them were wheezing and drooling as they tried to drink enough beer to numb the heat. The Krazies hit me pretty hard that night, too.

Next, four beautiful girls showed up. They were friends of Injoo, and he was interested in dating one of them. We took care of them, and I ended up sitting with them, talking. Three more old friends of Brant also showed up, so I think we had a total of fifteen people in this tiny restaurant.

While we were eating, a young Ukranian guy was going around with a suitcase, selling Ukranian souvenirs to pay his way through school (or so he said). Normally, I don’t buy junk from people going from table to table, but this was such a strange thing, that I had to get something to prove that I wasn’t lying. So I got this special pen that doubled as a whistle.

We were starting to get full and were deciding what to do next. I was suggesting we do noraebang. Then suddenly, we noticed the four girls that were with Injoo were missing. They just skipped out with out saying goodbye…

…Or paying their tabs.

This embarrassed Injoo and angered others. We were looking forward to the discounts at Sh-wing that night and had to pay much more extra.

The rest of us went across the street to 7-Eleven and set up a table with soju, beer, chasers, and some snacks.

I found an interesting sandwich — a buldalk pizza sandwich. Buldalk is the “fire chicken,” the very spicy barbecued chicken that people eat while drinking. So making this into a sandwich, or rather, a pizza sandwich was an irresistible idea.

I just had to try that one out.

And this will be a good time to introduce the newest section to the site, the Food Journal. I talk so much about food, that I thought I’d create a separate blog about food and include some recipes. Another blog, called Fat Man in Seoul, did a great job of this. Unfortunately, Fat Man has left Korea, so his blog is just archives.

I posted a piece about the Buldalk Pizza Sandwich in the Food Journal.

It got very late. The subways had closed down for the night. Andrew and Lydia offered to let Lars and me stay at their place, so we took a taxi to an area east of Gangnam. On the way there, we got some kimbap and some more alcohol.

At their apartment, I just had one beer and fell asleep on the floor as Andrew and Lars were discussing the properties of ants and spiders.

I slept without a pillow, so I awoke with a great crick in my neck. But I had no hangover, which I couldn’t say the same for Lars. We went out together to Joe’s Coffee and Sandwich for breakfast. Lars and I then took the subway back to our neighborhood.

I had only a little time to relax before Brant announced that he and the gang were almost here for the hockey game. I got dressed and started some laundry before heading out the door.

We met at the stadium center and noticed that no one was at the ticket counter. The doors to the center were open with no one taking tickets.

It was empty.

We found a poster on the wall that showed the Anyang Halla’s game schedule. There was a game being played today — in Beijing.

The web site said it was a home game. That was a big disappointment. I felt bad for everyone making the big trip down for this.

For a while we considered going ice skating in the rink but decided otherwise. We took taxis to Anyang’s central park, in between Beomgye and Pyeongchon. A festival was happening there and in Beomgye. The one in the park seemed to celebrate art made out of recycled materials. As I looked to dispose of my beer can, I noticed that this celebration didn’t extend to actual recycling bins.

Brant remembered that he had received a gift certificate to Outback for Chuseok. So he treated us all to some appetizers.

After that, we wandered around the festival. A young taekwondo group performed, breaking boards using the most acrobatic stunts. Some of them were no older than eight, leaping over people’s backs, doing back flips, to break wooden boards with their feet.

We ended the evening at WA Bar. It was a decent weekend. We just need to plan things better.

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About The Author

Joe McPherson founded ZenKimchi in 2004. He has been featured and sourced in The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, The Los Angeles Times, The Washington Post, CNN, KBS, MBC, SBS, Le Figaro, Travel + Leisure Southeast Asia, Harper’s Bazaar Korea, The Chosun Weekly, and other Korean and international media. He has consulted for "Parts Unknown with Anthony Bourdain," The Travel Channel’s “Bizarre Foods with Andrew Zimmern,” Lonely Planet, National Geographic, Conde Nast Traveler, the PBS documentary series “Kimchi Chronicles,” and other projects in the UK, Canada, and Australia featuring celebrity chefs such as Gizzi Erskine and Gary Mehigan.
Mr. McPherson has written for multiple Korean and international publications, including SEOUL Magazine, JoongAng Daily, The Korea Herald, Newsweek Korea and wrote the feature article for U.S. National publication Plate magazine’s all-Korean food issue. He has acted as dining editor for 10 Magazine and was on the judging panel for Korea for the Miele Guide.
He spoke at TEDx Seoul on Korean food globalization, at TED Worldwide Talent Search on the rise of Korean cuisine, and in New York City on Korean Buddhist temple cuisine. The company ZenKimchi International organizes food tours for tourists and corporations and acts as a media liaison for foreign and Korean media and local restaurants and producers.